Great cooks can earn something of what could be described as a legendary status in a region.

If you reap enough accolades and awards, write cookery books and do a few TV appearances, you’ll be well on your way – but being there, year in, year out, maintaining a consistently high quality is the surest way to earn a big name.

Especially when there are two of you instead of one – and especially when the pair of you start acting as ambassadors for your region.

Plymouth’s Tanner brothers fit that bill exactly. Chris and James Tanner are among the best-known chefs in the South West – they are lauded among their peers – and not long ago they opened a new business in their native Kent where they are trumpeting the produce and raw ingredients of the Westcountry long and loud.

The Tanner Brothers spoke to us at their Barbican Kitchen (Image: John Arandhara-Blackwell)

Chris and James opened their first restaurant – called Tanners – in Plymouth and it proved to be the start of a thriving family enterprise, which led to the opening of the Barbican Kitchen, housed in the city’s famous gin distillery.

More recently the pair opened The Kentish Hare in Tunbridge Wells – which won’t necessarily be of much interest to Herald readers, but I mention it because Chris has been telling me how the smart, extremely popular, gastro-pub is a showcase for everything Westcountry.

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“It’s brilliant – the customers over there love it,” Chris smiled when we met last week at the Barbican Kitchen. “The feedback we are getting is fantastic – and what we are doing there is about the provenance – the quality of the ingredients – about the historical aspects of where it’s all from.

“We have a regular guest-chef evening which is all based on Westcountry produce – so we’re talking about amazing ingredients like Salcombe crab, Creedy Carver duck, and a lot of Devon clotted cream. Kent is where we are from originally. Our parents are up there – it’s almost as if we’re a bit spoilt now because we can flit up there on a regular basis, and there’s two of us – so we can split that time without so many problems.”

The brothers have just launched a new venture in Kent (Image: John Arandhara-Blackwell)

Getting back to what Chris calls the “provenance” of raw ingredients, he mused: “That’s what we’re all about and what we were doing when we started. When we first opened the doors in 1999 the caption on the little brochure we had printed was: ‘Fresh food at a realistic price’.

“So we are not reinventing anything. It’s just down to our belief in what we are offering – but things have changed,” he added. “Eighteen years ago it was quite difficult to get hold of decent fish, even here on the coast, because it all got shipped in. I remember going to a pub years ago in the South Hams that was serving New Zealand green lipped mussels… Don’t get me wrong – they can be good – but why fly them from halfway around the world when you’ve got fantastic mussels on your doorstep?

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“That’s the infuriating thing – it is all on the doorstep down here in the South West – so why do people bring stuff like that in? I remember speaking to our butcher a few years back and he told me we were the only people within a 150-radius that used things like pig cheeks and ox cheeks. And he asked me what it was we were doing with them.

“If you have a belief in what you do – and where it’s from – well, that is what excites us. The fresh fish landed just a few hundred yards away from here is fantastic. A haunch of venison from Dartmoor just up the road… Some of the fantastic veg we can get in the South Hams… All this is the key to what we do.”

The pair started their careers in Plymouth (Image: John Arandhara-Blackwell)

Chris and I talked about what could be described as a renaissance in Westcountry dining, and I put it to him chefs across the region had taken a long time to wake up to the amazing ingredients to be found here.

“To some extent it’s a generation thing, but of course in some other countries they’ve always known about it. Years ago if I visited France is was all about the terroir. The region was the important thing – you’d go to certain areas and they were known for that speciality, or this. Like cassoulet, for example. You go to Spain – look how that’s exploded – there’s some stunning stuff happening over there.

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“But I think the UK is set for more of a renaissance, especially here in the South West – and especially with Brexit happening. People have always come to Devon or Cornwall on holiday, but there is a lot more short-break stuff now – and that might well increase.”

Chris had just come back from judging at the South West Chef of the Year competition and he said this annual duty made him feel optimistic about the future of dining here in the Westcountry. He added it was necessary for the industry to keep adapting and to some extent reinventing itself to meet new demands: the rise in popularity of the vegan diet, the relatively new requirement for gluten-free dishes.

One of the Tanners' signature dishes

Which is all a long way from the industry Chris first witnessed at the surprising age of just 12. “I went to cut the grass in this little Kentish village restaurant – the chef-owner was ex-Savoy and this was at the time when you went to some restaurants where you weren’t so interested in the food but in saying hello to Giuseppe who was flambéing crepe-suzette.

“Anyway, I needed the pocket money and he said did I want to come back next week see what they did in the kitchen… And that was when my love affair started with food. I completely immersed myself in it – and by the age of 14 I was running the Sunday lunch service.”

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Since then Chris has been all around the world working as a chef – cooking here, consulting there – and so too has his brother James. Now not only do they run their own popular award-winning restaurant and gastro-pub, they are heavily involved with various colleges and universities nurturing the next generation of chefs and front-of-house staff. Indeed, both were awarded honorary doctorates from Plymouth University in 2007.

“I am proud of what we have achieved and think it will lay a great foundation or legacy for the next generation,” he told me.

Preheat the oven to 220 °C/gas mark 7. Take the garlic, lemon zest, juice and the thyme, and mix in a bowl with two tbsps. of olive oil. Rub the mixture all over the sausages, season with salt and pepper and leave out at room temperature to marinate whilst you prepare the vegetables.

Take a large roasting tin and pop it into the oven to heat up while you prepare the vegetables. Cut the potatoes and the squash into two-inch chunks, then cut the onion into petals. Toss them in a bowl with the bacon lardons and remaining oil and seasoning, ensuring that all are well coated.

Next, put the mixed ingredients into the pre-heated roasting tin and shake gently to make sure your ingredients are evenly spread. Lay over the pork sausages and add any remaining marinade.

Roast in the hot oven for 20 minutes, shaking the tray and turning the ingredients half way through cooking. With five minutes of cooking time left, remove your tray from the oven and drizzle the honey, scatter the shredded sage, and crumble the stilton cheese on top. Return to the oven and cook for the remaining 5 minutes.

Once cooked, remove from the oven and serve piping hot with some serve with seasonal curly kale.